Airport shut down for a few hours, delaying thousands of passengers

Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport shut down for a few hours Thursday after lightning struck the tower and injured an air traffic controller. The severe weather also caused several delays.

The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that lightning struck the airport's air traffic control tower around 2:20 p.m. Thursday, which led to suspended flight operations for nearly three hours.

A controller in the BWI tower told WBAL Radio that another controller was reaching for a piece of equipment when the bolt of lightning hit the top of the tower. WBAL reported the victim was knocked to the ground, experiencing numbness to his arms and legs. The victim, who has not yet been identified, was taken to Shock Trauma for treatment and later released.

"As far as we know, when the lightning hit the tower, it traveled through a panel and came to an ungrounded piece of equipment and arced over and hit the personnel as he was reaching over to turn on an engine generator," said John Dunkerly of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. "The chances of it happening while he's reaching over to turn on a piece of equipment at the exact same time that lightning is hitting the tower -- he should play the lottery."

After the strike, an FAA official said the tower shut down to make sure no equipment was damaged. Dunkerly said engineers checked the tower and grounded the equipment that he said should have been grounded before the storm.

After safely landing planes in the immediate vicinity, the tower dropped communication with all of the planes and turned over the airspace to a regional tower near Washington, D.C. Incoming flights thereafter were diverted to other airports.

During the ordeal, travelers said BWI officials announced that flights would be delayed for four to six hours. 11 News reporter George Lettis said that while he was in the terminal around 4:30 p.m., lines in security and at the airline kiosks were growing.

Flights resumed gradually around 5:30 p.m., to the delight of thousands of those delayed travelers.

"I travel a lot, so this is right up there in my Top 2 of crazy things that have happened," said traveler Annette Reichard.

By 7 p.m., the BWI Twitter page said both of the primary air carrier runways were "open and operational." An earlier BWI tweet said the airlines were "working to accommodate travelers that were impacted earlier." Lettis reported at 11 p.m. that the delays had greatly diminished.

Severe weather was expected across Maryland into early Friday morning. Airports across the Northeast experienced delays due to the inclement weather conditions.

Shortly before 5 p.m. Thursday, the FAA released a statement that said:

"At 2:21 p.m. (Thursday) afternoon, lightning struck the air traffic control tower at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. The tower is not handling any air traffic operations at this time and the FAA's Potomac Consolidated Terminal radar approach control facility has assumed control of the airspace. All information is preliminary and subject to change."

Stay with WBAL-TV and wbaltv.com for the latest information on this story.

WBALTV.com editor Chris Dachille and reporter George Lettis contributed to this report.

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